What is using more battery - 3G or Wi-Fi? - Galaxy Note GT-N7000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

When internet access (either idle or during active use) is necessary, what is the better option for battery life?
Does Wi-Fi drain more battery, is it the other way around or is it the same?

Best option for bettery life is to leave wifi on when your in wifi area
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Wifi use less batt
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Wifi saves more battery than 3g.
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yes I agree Wifi drains less battery than 3G if you have a good wifi connection, but not if your phone is scanning for new wifi connection when you travels.
To be clearer, wifi is the best option at home or hotel room compare to DATA transfer (3G).

Thanks, I always thought that 3G needs more battery juice. Every day you learn something new.

Damn me to i always taught 3g would use less. Thr note battery still needs to be inproved.
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But if you are at home , WIFI is on and the screen off - actually this happens the most time.
I marked the option in the advanced WIFI-settings that turns the WIFI off when the screen is off.
What happens then? Does it do all network stuff with the 3G connection or is there a WIFI-wakelock for apps like Whatsapp?
If it uses the 3G network would't it be better to change to 2G?
Iam not sure this helps something but iam acutally doing it like this. Always on 2G (because at home and at work i have WIFI) and only when i need 3G when iam not in a WIFI-Network range i switch to 3G.
Does someone know how Android works?

Wifi is always better than 3g
Saves battery
saves money
And in many cases faster speed than 3g
So I will go with wifi
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Related

3g to 2g during screen off

Is there any app that switches from 3g to 2g when you turn screen off (just like you switch from Wifi to 3g). 3G is the biggest battery drainer in my case and I am sure turning off 3g when not in use would really help.
I have searched in the thread but couldnt find one.
/Sekhar.
I wish there was. The option to switch was in 1.5, but they left it out of 2.0/2.1.
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I just do it manually anytime I am not playing with the phone...
Thank you guys. I shall post this in themes and apps section as an idea.

Why the 3g/4g radio still on when I connected to wifi

Hi I have had several smartphones and I've had all the 4g Verizon phone and when I connect ti wifi automatically mobile data turn off or at least icon disappear from status bar but with the revolution and with this bionic that's no happen somebody can tell me why thanks
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Do you get the color change as described in this thread? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1261253
Mine does this
My bionic also stays connected to the mobile network when wifi is on and sometimes it will pull from the network instead of switching to wifi. the radio is all messed up on my bionic.
Well is not a mess I mean when I am connected to wifi my phone use wifi internet instead the mobile data but I guess with wifi n mobile data use more battery I guess I don't know the revolution is like bionic the same happens
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I see this on mine as well. I know some people have indicated that it is not really connected to 3G, here is what I'm seeing:
When Wifi is turned on, the 3G (or 4G if lte is enabeld) sometimes stays on. Sometimes it changes to white (indicating that it may still be connected, but not syncing to google through that connection), sometimes it stays blue, and once in while it actually goes away, but not often.
Some other threads seem to indicate that this is just a display bug. However, if I analyze my battery stats, I think the connection is actually staying on. Here is what happens:
* With just a plain 3g/4G connection and no wi-fi, if I look at the battery stats for Cell Standby, the "time on" increases as expected. If there was a period when the cell signal was dropped, I will also see the percentage ot time without a signal.
* When I turn on Wifi and the 3G icon stays on, if I look at the battery stats, the Cell Standby's time on continues to increase, but not the "percentage of time without a signal" also increases. This seems to indicate that the cell signal is staying on, but it knows it is not connected and is searching for a signal. I'm not sure if this is actually eating up more battery like when you really don't have a signal and it is searching, but it is being reporting that way at least.
* If I install a widget to disable 3G/4G while on wifi, the icons go away, but I still see the same thing happening in the battery stats. This could indicate that it is still connected, or it could invalidate what I'm seeing altogether, not sure.
In any event, I'm not sure what the real story is here, I never had the icons stay on with previous devices (Droid X and X2), so I never investigated the battery stats. However, I see alot of people talking about their Cell Standby taking up a lot of battery, I wonder if this plays in to it.
-Chris
yeah I don't think it's really on either. I verify this by using speed test. I know my speed at home and lte is faster. lol
When I use juice defender I disable mobile data when connected to a wifi SI icon disappear this happen with the revolution and bionic I don't see on tbolt nor charge
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My 4g icon stays on while connected to wifi and stays blue. But according to speedtest the speeds reflect connection to wifi.
kookahdoo said:
My 4g icon stays on while connected to wifi and stays blue. But according to speedtest the speeds reflect connection to wifi.
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Mine is doing the same, but its still draining the battery like CRAZY when browsing on supposed wifi... Definitely a bug.
Mine is the same way but I can't use anything on my network like google tv remote or printershare it says it can't see anything on the network. Tried other phones and they work
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It should prefer wifi over 3G/4G. I keep this page bookmarked on my Droid that shows IP and ISP name to test it.
http://www.dslreports.com/mspeed?whoami=1&w=
I have been on wifi all night. 3g lights on. However, my data useage for the month have not changed. I am confident that 3g is not being called upon
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Dbeayon said:
I have been on wifi all night. 3g lights on. However, my data useage for the month have not changed. I am confident that 3g is not being called upon
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My experience is similar.

Note drains faster on wifi when not roaming

Hi, when I'm abroad using wifi (so no cellular data), my battery lasts longer compared to being at home, also on Wifi. how can this be possible? shouldnt cellular data be deactivated as soon as i activate wifi?
thanks in advance
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Depends on what Wi-Fi network you're connecting to. In theory - 5Ghz network takes more battery than 2.4Ghz or a/b/g network. Also, signal strength also plays it's role - constant low signal forces the antenna to work harder - and at home you always get good signal.
Who knows, maybe that's the reason.
Maybe when you are home the data connection stays in the background waiting for you to drop off wifi network and therefore eats up the battery
but when you are on roaming the data connection is turned off completely to save on data bill
this is just an assumption...
what I usually do is when am at home or work, I turn off data and turn on wifi manually instead of letting the phone choose for me. I've found that this helps in conserving battery
No, thats not how it works.. Your cellular data connection is active, just unused.
k1ckdapro said:
Hi, when I'm abroad using wifi (so no cellular data), my battery lasts longer compared to being at home, also on Wifi. how can this be possible? shouldnt cellular data be deactivated as soon as i activate wifi?
thanks in advance
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itsrijo said:
what I usually do is when am at home or work, I turn off data and turn on wifi manually instead of letting the phone choose for me. I've found that this helps in conserving battery
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I do this too, in fact I use Llama to do it for me. It saves a lot of battery.
Thanks, that's what I thought. But why can't android simply deactivate data when connected. I don't get why there is no such option.
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power consumption of 3G vs. WiFi

Hey all,
assume that I have 3G flatrate with no extra cost. I wonder myself, if WiFi or 3G consumes more power of my battery? If WiFi would consume more power, than I would switch to permanently use 3G also at home.
Hope to get some helpful answers from the pro's here.
Thanx
3G, by far.
3g>wifi>2g
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA
Sloop said:
I wonder myself, if WiFi or 3G consumes more power of my battery?
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Click to collapse
3G consumes more power of your battery than WiFi.
thanks to all. So I will keep WiFi enabled at home
It depends on CDMA or GSM. CDMA is pretty battery efficient and IMO Rev. A EVDO is the best for battery. If you have a strong 3G signal where you live and get good speeds then you may get better life than wifi, but that is rare. More than likely wifi will be better. Now on GSM 3g will be worse but EDGE will be amazing.
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MrObvious said:
It depends on CDMA or GSM. CDMA is pretty battery efficient and IMO Rev. A EVDO is the best for battery. If you have a strong 3G signal where you live and get good speeds then you may get better life than wifi, but that is rare. More than likely wifi will be better. Now on GSM 3g will be worse but EDGE will be amazing.
Sent from my XT862 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right on. Signal strength is the real key. If your phone is constantly polling on 3G to get a signal lock, it'll drain the battery quickly. With a decent signal, it doesn't drain as fast. Same goes for Wi-fi. With a good signal, definitely better if you're downloading a lot of data as it takes much less time. However, if you're out of range or at the edge of it, it struggles to keep a signal lock and wastes battery. So, if you're at home just lounging around, have a strong 3G signal and aren't downloading much, it's best to go with 3G. If you have a bad signal, or download a bunch, go for Wi-fi. It's more just a balancing act than anything to get the best battery life. Also, make sure the wifi is turned off when you're not connected, or it will be constantly searching for a connection which also will lead to battery drain.
linuxgator said:
Right on. Signal strength is the real key. If your phone is constantly polling on 3G to get a signal lock, it'll drain the battery quickly. With a decent signal, it doesn't drain as fast. Same goes for Wi-fi. With a good signal, definitely better if you're downloading a lot of data as it takes much less time. However, if you're out of range or at the edge of it, it struggles to keep a signal lock and wastes battery. So, if you're at home just lounging around, have a strong 3G signal and aren't downloading much, it's best to go with 3G. If you have a bad signal, or download a bunch, go for Wi-fi. It's more just a balancing act than anything to get the best battery life. Also, make sure the wifi is turned off when you're not connected, or it will be constantly searching for a connection which also will lead to battery drain.
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Nah, not in my experience. I live in an area which is well-blanketed with EVDO 3G, I literally have never been anywhere in the normal course of work or home that has less than 4 bars and 3G lock. Also, my house is covered with wifi, not as thoroughly but plenty to maintain a connection wherever I am in the house, and full signal in the rooms where I spend the most time for sure. Also, until recently, I had wifi at work, they just locked me out of it in fact (because they're facists).
In my experience, I always get FAR BETTER battery life using wifi over 3G as much as possible, even though I have great 3G signal strength 100% of the time and not-so-great wifi coverage. It seems like that wasn't the case with other smartphones I've owned in this same situation, with both Verizon and AT&T in the same locations and with roughly the same coverage (much worse with AT&T, though, of course.) But, with this Droid 3 running the stock ROM rooted, just a few apps like IM and BluetoothDUN frozen, with great 3G and less-great wifi coverage, I always get much better battery life from a day of being connected to wifi versus a day being connected to 3G.
Now, I manage my wifi switching very well too, though; I use Timeriffic to turn mine on and off every work day on a schedule, meaning it's never searching for wifi networks unless I'm geographically in a place where I know there is one I have the connection credentials for. If I left it on searching (and not connected to) wifi all day, I'm sure I'd get a battery life hit, which if I wasn't paying attention like I do would look like wifi eating the battery.
Ciao!
You may have a good wifi router. Mine sucks so that may make a difference. We have a Motorola SBG900 modem and I am always losing signal.
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What uses more battery: Wifi or mobile data?

I usually turn of my mobile data, and connect to just wifi when there a network available.
What consumes more battery? If speed is not an issue.
Thanks
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I had a Samsung Epic 4G (the first line of Galaxy S) and on that, wifi consumed less battery than data, but on the Note, I am experience the opposite.
I find that wifi drains my battery faster.
If I disable wifi and am connected to 3G, the battery lasts longer.
If you use wifi to surf net, battery time will last longer. If you use data mobile like Hspa, you can see the battery drain very fast. (6 months of monitor with this)
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WIFI always use less battery the radio doesnt have to do much work since the router is within a close range.... mobile radio does much more work and consume mote battery than wifi...
Wifi power usage depending of type of wifi (2.4G or 5G), router settings and signal.
2.4G is less then 5G type. This is because more power will need for higher freq.
Router setting will give impact on your connected device to your router. Go to the wifi advance router setting and set optimal for speed and less power usage wifi setting such as Beacon Interval, RTS/CTS Threshold,Fragmentation Threshold, DTIM. And last great signal great battery life.

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